Obviously there's a lot of controversy around Obamacare—and most people agree it needs to be fixed. While the ACA insured 16 million additional Americans, it left many people uninsured and unable to afford insurance. Still, dismantling Obamacare without implementing a replacement could be dangerous—and could cause 18 million people to lose their insurance within the first year of repeal. (Learn more about that here.) Worth noting: A recent Kaiser Family Foundation poll showed that only 20 percent of Americans want the government to repeal the act without a replacement, while 75 percent want legislators to leave the ACA alone or wait to dismantle it until they have a replacement.

As you can tell, the ACA is admittedly pretty confusing (but you can learn more about it here). And while it's hard to boil down a ton of complicated healthcare policy, here's the simple truth: Obamacare probably affects you every day in ways you don't even realize. That may seem like a bold statement, but the ACA actually did a lot more than expand healthcare access. Here, seven ways the Affordable Care Act impacts people on a daily basis—even if they don't get insurance through Obamacare.

1. It's the reason there are calorie counts on menus.

If you've ever gone to a restaurant and seen the calorie content listed under every menu item, you can thank Obamacare for that. Under the ACA, any restaurant chain with more than 20 locations is required to display a calorie count for each food and drink item on its printed menus and its signs. This regulation also requires the same of vending machines and "similar retail food establishments."

In addition to clearly displaying the calorie count, restaurants have to clearly note the average recommended daily calorie intake—which is around 2,000 calories, according to the FDA. Though a healthy caloric intake varies from person to person based on things like size, gender, and level of activity (talk to your doctor to learn more about what's right for you), displaying that info gives customers some baseline information they can use to make decisions when ordering. Restaurants are also required to let customers know that more nutritional information about each menu item is available upon request.

One key thing the ACA does is require insurance plans to cover domestic violence screening and counseling as free preventive services for women. Screenings can be administered by professionals in many different ways—through a series of open-ended questions, brochures, forms, or other prompts. In counseling sessions, domestic violence survivors can learn more about the connection between domestic violence and specific health concerns. They may also be referred to local domestic violence support resources.

According to the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence (NCADV), nearly 10 million women and men experience intimate partner violence each year, and nearly 20,000 calls are placed to domestic violence hotlines each day. Women between the ages of 18–24 are the most likely group to encounter this kind of violence. Intimate partner violence is associated with higher rates of depression and suicidal behavior, and only 34 percent of survivors receive medical care for injuries sustained. By requiring healthcare plans to cover these services, the ACA ensures that more survivors can access the medical services they need to stay safe and healthy.

(These services are designed specifically to protect women. To learn more about what preventive services are available to all adults because of the ACA, click here.)

3. It protects senior citizens from elder abuse.

Under the ACA, the government implemented the Elder Justice Act (EJA), which seeks to reduce the abuse, neglect, and exploitation of senior citizens. The act created an advisory board to tackle these issues at the local, state, and federal levels, and it gave grant money to improve the quality of staff and service at long-term care facilities. The EJA also introduced a provision requiring federally funded care facilities—like inpatient hospices and assisted living facilities—to protect individuals who report potential crimes under the EJA.

Approximately 1 in 10 Americans over the age of 60 will experience some kind of elder abuse in their lifetime, according to the National Center on Elder Abuse. This means as many as 5 million senior citizens are abused each year. And in nearly 60 percent of cases, the abuse is inflicted by a family member—often a spouse or adult child. Unfortunately, research has shown these cases often go unreported. One JAMA study found that only 1 in 14 cases are appropriately reported to authorities—a devastating statistic, considering the same study found that elder abuse survivors have an increased risk of death compared to elders who have not been abused. By improving elder care and protecting individuals who report abuse, the EJA is making it easier to respond to this kind of abuse—and stop it in the first place.

4. It's the reason your employer has to let new mothers take breast-pumping breaks.

Another thing the ACA does is require employers to provide break-time for new mothers to pump breast milk. Basically, moms must be allowed to take a break to pump breast milk each time they need to. And according to the ACA, the employer has to give the mom a "reasonable" amount of break time to pump.

Plus, the employer is required to provide a designated private area—that isn't a bathroom—for pumping. This can be especially helpful for mothers who return to the workforce shortly after giving birth, because it allows them to feed their children with their own milk—even if they aren't always able to do so in person.

5. It protects habilitative care—which helps people with developmental delays.

Habilitative care is similar to rehabilitative care, but it helps people develop abilities they've never had (rather than abilities they've had and lost). And under Obamacare, insurance providers were required to cover habilitation in healthcare plans. (They were also required to cover rehabilitation.) These services can help children born with developmental delays learn to walk and talk, and can provide therapy to individuals with neurodevelopmental conditions like autism.

This is hugely helpful to people who need this type of care. USA Today notes that applied behavioral analysis, a form of habilitation for individuals with autism, can cost more than $50,000 a year.

6. It's the reason you can pick your ob/gyn without a doctor's reference.

Obamacare allows women to choose any ob/gyn in their network without a doctor's referral. (They can also choose any pediatrician or primary care provider they want—as long as those professionals are in their health insurance network.) Many states already protected a woman's right to do this before the ACA. But some of these state-based regulations didn't apply to self-insured plans, which are offered by many large employers. Obamacare made it so that these protections are extended to all healthcare plans—meaning all women now have the opportunity to choose the ob/gyn they want and feel most comfortable with within their network.

7. It's also the reason you have access to well-woman preventive care—like mammograms and STI screenings.

The ACA required insurance companies to cover a bunch of preventive reproductive healthcare services without a co-pay. One of these services is a "well-woman visit"—also known as your annual check-up at the gynecologist. At well-woman visits, women can get mammograms, pap smears (which screen for cervical cancer), and contraceptive counseling. Other services protected under the ACA include: gestational diabetes screening, HPV testing, STI screening and counseling, HIV screening and counseling, and breastfeeding support and counseling.

Obamacare also provides support to women experiencing postpartum depression, educates families about what postpartum depression is, and funds research into the condition.